EJECTING FROM A HAWKER HUNTER

Roderick Kurtz punches out after an encounter with a USAF F-35

- JAN TEGLER

Former U.S. Navy Super Hornet pilot Roderick "Hot Rod" Kurtz was surprised. On a fair weather summer afternoon in August of 2017, just under two years after he retired from active duty flying F/A-18Fs with VFA-154, Kurtz was airborne in a Hawker Hunter, acting as an adversary to help train the Navy fighter pilots and ship crews he'd only recently parted company with.

The single-seat Mk.58 Hunter Kurtz was strapped into was originally manufactured in 1959, part of a batch of 100 new-build Hunters that served with the Swiss Air Force until 1994. By 2017, this aircraft was part of Airborne Tactical Advantage Company's (ATAC) stable of Hunters used to fulfill a variety of Red Air roles on a Navy adversary contract.

Fifteen thousand feet above the Pacific, roughly 80 miles southwest of San Diego, he was wingman in a two-ship Hunter formation led by fellow ex-naval aviator and ATAC vice president of business operations Richard "Miggs" Zins. It was about 4 pm when an F-35A from the 62nd Fighter Squadron at Luke AFB joined on Kurtz' Hunter, just 500 feet off his right wing.

"It wasn't what you'd do if you were intercepting and escorting an enemy aircraft. I made a call to Miggs saying, 'I don't know what he's doing."" Kurtz recalls.

Moments later, Kurtz heard the F-35's Navy controller tell its pilot and his flight lead to drop their escort of the Hunters. That's when the fighter on Kurtz's right wing did something he didn't expect.

"Instead of being tactical and dropping behind and below and leaving, or just giving a friendly wave then peeling off, he accelerated and pulled in front of me from the right hand side, crossing my nose very hard from right to left, probably just 300 to 400 yards ahead. I could see the full planform of the F-35, the top of the jet."